The Night Shift

[jim sanders]

jeeez WC i forgot to ask you if it is ok to hand off a copy to my brother John as his hispanic friend has a 2 hour local radio show where he can play anything he wants... my brother-in-law (sisters husband ) Mike Ritchey, country singer songwrighter guitar player has been on the show live and sang a song then the dude played a couple cuts from his cd that was mastered at home with Mike playing every instument including pedalsteel, accoustic, bass and leads with electronic drum kit... also my brother wants to know if he can dud some of the music into his and friends movie they have been working on this year.. just sights and sounds around St.Louis....

[WildcatOne]

Many, many thanks, Doc. Hope Derek digs this. And the across-the-creek guys, too, not to mention John The Plumber's vote of confidence. Between you, me and BP, Bill Gibson and the Draglist family, it's all over the US and Europe now. Can't get a minute's worth of airplay here, but I've learned that the 2 radio stations in Belgium and Serbia are playing it on the air all the time. Bill was just here, in fact. He came by to fix Kyle's guitar and he dropped off a check with me for designing his business card for him. I also got a surprize call from Gator today and we got caught up on all the latest. Life is good. WC1

[WildcatOne]

The music and radio things sound great, Doc! Depending on what songs, I will check with Bill...he and I wrote all that stuff, he has 6 songs on there and I have 4. My 4 are "Follow The Leader", "Diablo", "Too Late To Come Home" and "Meet Your Maker". If John wants to use some of Bill's tunes, Bill needs to be asked, know what I'm saying? You just asked me and I'm cool with my songs going out anywhere...I can put them in touch. THANKS...WC1

[Gator]

[jim sanders]

ok John i will inform brother John and John the Plumber that your 4 songs are good to go !! John the Plumber wants to add a couple to his 2-man gig to play while they are on break so i will see him tomorrow and explain the deal..

[wheelzman]

CAT, you made my day hearing about the job. Also, good news about the CD. Your nine lives are at work for you. God bless.

[WildcatOne]

Turns out the job is temporary, until the crew chief gets back from vacation. The adventure continues, but I'm just going to double-up on my leads and searches. There's a reason for these things, and I believe it is that the thing I am set to do is waiting for me to show up! I have no doubt.
Yesterday we played 2 full gigs. The first was in Galveston at an apartment complex on Seawall Boulevard. We left Rockin' Robin in Houston at 2PM, got there at 3:15, set up (it was a 100-yard load-in during the heat of the day)...although we had a little breeze blowing, it was a steam bath. We all got totally soaked with sweat, playing in front of a big swimming pool full of very inhibited residents...Willie complained to Lynn about something and Lynn finally jumped in his face, then Willie got his feelings hurt and the downward spiral of negativity began for Willie. It actually wasn't very bad, though...not as bad as I expected it to be. Willie can complain for 10 hours and not stop for one second, but he ended up shutting up and just going through with the double-gig schedule. We got to Big Dawg's of the Wal-Mart jewelry store girls fame at 8:45, pulled our stuff in, set up in a nice air-conditioned neon-lit room full of partying bikers and neighborhood folks having 3 birthday parties at once with our buddy Colorado on guitar hosting the Freedom River Band's Saturday night orgy, and we tore into a rocking set of blues, rock 'n roll and boogie till 1AM, with the girls dancing around us and showing us their...uh...assets...we were re-energized and lit-up for the gig. We get loose with Freedom River and we stretch out our songs to the limit, we take risks and joke around and just have fun. Willie and Mikey gave me $23 between them for my gas and time that I spent picking them up and taking them to these gigs. Nice of them to think of it...I got home at 3 this morning but I was wound up and I couldn't sleep until around 5...I drank 4 cans of Sunkist Orange soda and a cup of Starbucks latte, and then had a couple of Cokes at Big Dawg's, so I was pretty much full of caffeine. Even an Excedrin PM didn't calm me down, but it's OK. I was still rocking out inside my head after everything was over. Life is good. WC1

[WildcatOne]

I'm leaving this afternoon to go to Carthage, Texas for a gig tomorrow night with a band called The Stumblers...funny name, but they're a great band. All my expenses will be paid plus they're giving me double-scale for the gig. I'll be switching between keyboards and guitar for the show. Apparently a couple of hundred people are coming and paying a cover charge to get in. It's the event of the summer from what I've been told. Last night I hosted the open-mic jam at the Cock-Eyed Seagull, but it was Lynn that really ran the show. I did learn some things. I opened the show at 8PM with a set of originals that I wrote, and it was like I wasn't even playing. The songs did not connect, the crowd didn't respond at all. It was Happy Hour...it's a whole different crowd...they couldn't care less...then Lynn got up there with me and we did some Shakedown songs and the crowd clapped, hooted and got down with the Santana, Animals and Spencer Davis stuff...Lynn knows the drill on these things, and I appreciated him being there...he is not pleased at all with me right now because I'm doing this gig and Freedom River is playing Saturday without me or Mikey and he's had to get equipment and so forth from me to pull it off...but like I say, I have been the iron man for this band for the last 2 years, and this is too good of an offer for me to pass on...I don't have any plans to do this all the time. Shakedown and Freedom River are booked well into 2007 and we're actually unable to stop the phones from ringing and the money is getting better all the time. I'll be there but I also have a life and I have to do my stuff every now and then...but like I say, Lynn is in a quiet, I gotta go kind of mode and I know what that is. The guy has been a Godsend to me and we've built that band up to a powerhouse level in the last year since we added Willie and Mikey, for as silly as they can be, they can PLAY and when we're on stage we're hard to beat for what we do. Last night I had good moments and bad ones. My solo set at the beginning of the night was an embarrassment, but it was quickly forgotten and made up for by the time the jammers showed up. Cap'n Rick came in and played a 50-minute set. He is a white-haired hippie with a long beard, kind of looks like the Maharishi with a 12-string guitar. He plays Beatle songs, some current hits, some Billy Joel and some Jethro Tull, Jimmy Buffet, Mellencamp, etc...he's a great atmosphere guy and a very nice, down-to-earth personality. Bob and Katie came in and had a glass of wine. They run Katie's in Bacliff, where Shakedown plays on their roster, and they are great folks. Lynn told me Katie wants my email because she wants me to do some flyers for them and I will be delighted to work with her. Then a guy named Chili got up and played. His wife, Debbie, sang harmonies on some CSNY songs, "Helplessly Hoping" and "Four and Twenty", which is a Stills solo song, but she added a great harmony on it. Then he played a solo blues set that was excellent. Great voice, sounded like Robert Johnson, and he did Robert Johnson material in open tunings using a glass slide and the dude hit the note. It was great having him play. Everybody just sat there and watched and listened to him, except for a guy named John Honda who unfortunately is an annoying sociopathic jerk...he apes the performers and likes to stay directly within my line of vision, usually 18 inches to 2 feet away from my face, and he is constantly looking straight into my eyes while he does his song and dance. He follows me and Lynn everywhere we play, brings his guitar and is constantly twanging it in front of me, doing Beatles, Beatles, Beatles, Beatles, Beatles, Beatles...like I need to hear it...when we take a break, he plays Beatles songs but does not sing them. So after Chili finished, we got him up to play 3 songs. Lynn did "Boom Boom", the Animals version, then he did "Bring It On Home To Me", also from "Animal Tracks", with John and me on keyboards...all the time John Honda staying 18 inches to 2 feet away from my face, staring into my eyes the whole time, emphasizing his first-position rhythym chords. Finally Lynn went into "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" by the Beatles, and I don't have that song down. I know it, but it doesn't have a keyboard part and I have to improvise one and it goes from one chord to another all over the place, and I blew it. So John makes faces at me and starts telling me "Hey! That was WRONG!" I stumbled through the song and got offstage at the end of his set. It was a quiet moment and he walked up to me and gets right in front of me and says "You really messed up the keyboard part on that song..." and apes like he's playing keyboards in front of me. Everybody was looking at him, there is silence. I shouted "I F*&%$D IT UP! HOW'S THAT?" Silence. Chili said "You played it OK, next time you'll nail it, man." I said Thank you. I kept moving around the club after that, every 5 minutes John Honda would show up 18 inches away from my face in my direct line of vision, talking and aping and I couldn't understand anything he was saying. Then Zack showed up and played for almost 2 full hours, doing his original stuff. Lynn played the first set with him while I helped Willie, who showed up with a CAR, get his drums out of Ludwig. Then Lynn took a break and I did some keyboards with Zach, then I picked up my guitar and played the best I've played in years, much to the stupor of the crowd, who had never heard me play guitar before. I hung with Zach on 10 songs and played lead guitar and chords all over his stuff, and Zach and Lynn both told me it was amazing and that made my night. John Honda left some time during that set, thank goodness. What it's going to come down to is I'm going to tell John Honda to take his act somewhere else because he's crowding my view of my world and I don't want to be rude, but HE is rude and a major pain in the you-know-what. Colorado was there but he didn't play, he just wanted to hang out and watch the jammers. Colorado is one cool dude, and it's always a pleasure to be in the company of a gentleman like him. Finally, a drunk cowboy showed up with his wife and his son and his son's girlfriend and he got up and played "Whiskey River" on my guitar with his own lyrics...he was fun to jam with, but he got there 10 minutes before shut-down, and shoot, he was just getting warmed up when we had to pull the plug. That didn't go over too well with them, but see, it always happens that a crowd of people show up right when you're finishing up the night, and they want a full party set that would run an hour past our alotted time slot. And when you have to shut it down, they get pissed off because they're too drunk to understand the reality of the situation...same kind of thing last night, but they were calm about it, just gripey. Lynn pretty much pushed me out the door and got his stuff and split when I paid him. The bad vibe will pass. We're in it for the long run. Anyway, that's what's happening on the Night Shift. Life is good. WC1

[Billy Mac]

Dayaammmm, John.....You wouldn't try to cause eye strain or anything like that , would ya??....(LOL)......Great read, as Usual, my Friend!!

[WildcatOne]

Howdy, Folks. WildcatOne here. Just in from getting the rear window in Ludwig replaced from where the burglars smashed it out after I got back at 1 this morning from a 6-day trip that was supposed to be 2, but since my brakes went out in Carthage, I went ahead to Shreveport and stayed at my cousins Bert and Carol's places until we could fix the problem (a coiled wire leading from the master cylinder to the ABS box had a hole rubbed into it from the steering column, also had to bleed the brakes) and after I came in with the van locked, they broke into it in my driveway and stole all of my musical equipment. Keyboard, gig bag with all my cords, tuners, mics, etc...also the PA system, my Fender Twin Reverb amp, and both of my guitar effects processing boxes. $3500 worth of stuff. The cops were sympathetic but all they can do is fill out a report, ya know. I was tired and I left my stuff out there in the van. They also messed with Kyle's van and Debby's car but didn't get into them. Anyway, I got back safe. I was supposed to make $150 but I ended up spending $230 over what I made. I think we're probably going to move out of here before too long. Things just aren't working out all that good anymore. The only reason I wanted to stay here was so that Nick (I mean Chris) could finish high school at Dulles, but he told me today he wants to move. It's just not good for any of us anymore here. I have backup stuff I can use, but I'm going to miss some of that stuff I lost. It's all for a reason, and I accept it. Life is good. It sure is nice to be back home. Welcome back, Doc. Cheers, WC1